SMU, Dal could be on collision course at AUS women’s volleyball championship

Saint Mary’s Huskies’ Rachel Windhorst, the league’s most valuable player, leads her team into the AUS playoffs this weekend. (TED PRITCHARD / Staff)

Winners of four of the five past AUS women’s volleyball championships, the Dalhousie Tigers and Saint Mary’s Huskies appear headed for another collision course in Sunday’s final.

The Huskies, as this season’s No. 1 seed with an 11-5 record, and the second place Tigers, at 10-6, qualified for direct entry in Saturday’s semifinals in Fredericton, N.B.

Saint Mary’s will be looking to avenge last year’s straight-set loss to the Tigers in the championship match at the Dalplex.

“Losing to them in the finals last year definitely meant a lot, it just makes you want to win that much more,” said Huskies second-year left-side hitter Rachel Windhorst, this year’s AUS most valuable player.

But Huskies head coach Darren Russell said his team isn’t looking ahead to a potential rematch, stating that the title is up for grabs this season.

The host Varsity Reds are the only other team this year with a winning record (9-7), and will face sixth-seeded Acadia in a quarter-final Friday. The other quarter-final will feature Moncton against Memorial.

“In the playoffs it’s who can take it up a notch and make less mistakes,” Russell said. “It’s funny, I personally think any team can beat anybody in this league and it all comes down to who’s ready to execute at that time. I don’t want to play anybody, I just think everyone is (competitive).”

With what essentially amounts to a brand new roster, made almost exclusively of first and second-year players, Russell said last year’s result has virtually no bearing on what will happen this weekend.

“We don’t really read a whole lot into that. We’ve been to the finals the last five years,” he said. “For us, we’ve haven’t had that core to stick together as long we had (previously). Once we lost the Kerri Smit crew back in 2012, we’ve had a (lot of) turnover every year for the next three years.”

Windhorst, last year’s conference rookie of the year, was at or near the top of almost every major offensive category in the AUS, including points (279), points per set (4.2), kills (246), kills per set (3.73), total attacks (651), and hitting percentage (.247).

But she was quick to heap praise on teammates like first-year setter Elly Prince, who led the AUS in assists (507), and came in third in assists per set (8.05).